Super Mario Run to Get ‘Biggest Update Ever’ and 50% Price Drop on Friday

Super Mario Run will receive its “biggest update ever” later this week, according to a sneak peek shared on the App Store this weekend.

A new gameplay mode called Remix 10 will include a set of 10 super-short sections from Super Mario Run’s existing levels in quick succession. The stages are remixed with each attempt, with rainbow-colored bonus medals throughout.

Remix 10 has no Game Over screen, and even if you fail to complete a level, you’ll just proceed to the next one without any penalty. This means new players can familiarize themselves with a variety of different levels easily and experts can attempt to collect every bonus medal for a perfect rating.

Finishing stages and collecting medals in Remix 10 mode gives players the chance to collect new items to decorate their Mushroom Kingdom, and eventually rescue the newly added character Princess Daisy.

Once rescued, Princess Daisy can be used as a playable character in all of Super Mario Run’s other gameplay modes.

Daisy’s special ability is to perform a double jump, opening up a brand new way to beat the stages you find trickiest, collect the coveted black coins, or race against other players in Toad Rally.

Super Mario Run will gain a brand new world called World Star, which has nine new levels that are unlocked once players have finished all of the existing stages in the six worlds of the World Tour.

These new levels are filled with new enemies, gameplay mechanics, and of course include pink, purple, and black coin-collecting challenges. Nintendo is promising surprises for even the most seasoned Super Mario Run players in this one.

The update will also allow Super Mario Run to be played while listening to any music in the background, rather than the game soundtrack only.

The update will be available on the App Store [Direct Link] on Friday, September 29, and on the same day, the $9.99 in-app purchase that unlocks the full game will be offered at “around 50% off” for a limited time.

About the Game

Super Mario Run is a runner designed for one-handed gameplay. Mario runs forward automatically as players tap to jump, collect coins, pounce on Goombas, avoid obstacles, and reach the flagpole at the end of each course before the timer runs out. In the end, Mario must rescue Princess Peach from the infamous Bowser.

(Thanks, Jesse L.!)

Tag: Super Mario Run
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Jared Kushner uses private email for White House business

You don’t have to be a former presidential hopeful to draw heat over using private email for work. Politico has revealed that presidential senior adviser (not to mention son-in-law) Jared Kushner has been using a private email account to conduct White House business. He has used the account since December to discuss event planning, media coverage and “other subjects” with both key White House members and advisers, including former strategist Steve Bannon, ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus and National Economic Council leader Gary Cohn, among others. The account was set up in December as part of the transition, but it’s been in use well since President Trump took office.

Some of those involved messaged him first, including from their own private accounts.

An attorney for Kushner, Abbe Lowell, has been quick to acknowledge the ongoing use but is also downplaying its scope. Kushner has sent or received “fewer than 100 emails” between his personal account and White House officials, Lowell says. These “usually” included forwarded news stories and opinion pieces, and were typically started by someone sending a message to Kushner rather than the other way around. The lawyer says that Kushner is honoring the Presidential Records Act, which requires archiving all presidential correspondence (and related material), by forwarding messages to his government account.

The problem that it’s difficult to verify that this forwarding is taking place. It also reflects a tendency of current White House staff to rely much more on private messaging instead of government supplied accounts. Unlike past administrations, it could be much harder to keep a historical record if staff are regularly using private accounts. And while analogies between this and Clinton’s private email don’t fit all that well (Clinton was using a private email server for potentially sensitive correspondence), it’s hard to escape the irony of attacking a politician for using private email only to do that yourself.

Source: Politico

See how that couch would look in your living room in AR with Ikea Place

Why it matters to you

Don’t want to buy that couch without seeing it in your living room first? Ikea Place can help.

Anticipating poor design choices before you ever make them can be key to ensuring that you never again bring an ugly couch into your home. With a new app with Ikea, you can use augmented reality to “see” potential pieces of furniture in your home before pulling out your credit card, and save yourself a whole lot of consternation when it comes to (re)decorating your home.

Thanks to Ikea Place, customers will be able to experience and experiment with furniture from the retailer. You can place chairs, desks, and just about anything else in your kitchen, backyard, or heck, on the street, just to see how it all looks.

“Ikea Place makes it easier to make buying decisions in your own place, to get inspired and try many different products, styles and colors in real-life settings with a swipe of your finger. Augmented reality and virtual reality will be a total game changer for retail in the same way as the internet. Only this time, much faster,” Michael Valdsgaard, Leader Digital Transformation at Inter Ikea Systems, said in a release.

All items available in the app promise to be true to scale so you can ensure that you’re seeing precisely how an armchair would look in that particular corner of your room. Ikea Place claims to automatically scale products based on a room’s dimensions with up to 98 percent accuracy. Moreover, Ikea claims that the AR technology is precise enough to allow customers to see the texture of a fabric, and even the interplay of light and shadows on potential furnishings.

To use the app, simply scan the floor of a room, browse the list of products available in the app, and select the product you’d like to place. At launch, Ikea will have more than 2,000 products available on the app, and moving forward, the company says that the app will “play a key role in the launch of new product lines.”

The app will be available in the Apple store beginning in late September, and will require iOS 11 to function.

“Now, technology has caught up with our ambition. AR lets us redefine the experience for furniture retail once more, in our restless quest to create a better everyday life for everyone, everywhere,” Valdsgaard concluded.

Television with built-in Fire TV makes better use of your voice

One of the Element Fire TV Edition set’s main hooks is clearly its Alexa voice control, so it stands to reason that the entire television stands to benefit the more you can use it, doesn’t it? Sure enough, Element is trotting out an update that makes better use of voice recognition. You can enter text into fields using your voice instead of the keyboard, which could take a lot of the pain out of filling out forms and certain search boxes. Also, you can rename inputs to more familiar terms and use Alexa to switch to them — you can specify that you’re jumping to your PS4 instead of “HDMI2.”

The upgrade isn’t all about verbal communication. Element went so far as to tweak the standard picture setting for higher contrast, particularly black levels, and adds customization for element like gamma and white balance. You can alter the image quality for individual inputs, too, and it’s possible to add individual channels to your favorites from the On Now row that shows what’s hot. These and the Alexa improvements won’t necessarily make you skip over a high-end set, but they could make Element’s unit a more tempting proposition if you’re on a budget.

Source: Amazon Fire TV Blog (Medium)

Robots learn to walk naturally by understanding their bodies

The challenge with bipedal robots isn’t so much getting them to walk at all (although that’s sometimes a problem) as it is getting them to walk naturally. They tend to either step cautiously or quickly run into trouble. Swiss researchers think they can do better, though: they’re working on COMAN (Compliant Humanoid), a headless robot designed to master walking. The automaton is more graceful through a combination of more flexible, elastic joints and a control algorithm that helps the bot understand its own body.

COMAN is aware of the symmetries in its dynamics and structure, which helps it not only walk with a natural gait but carry objects, navigate uneven surfaces like stairs, and react to surprises. If you push the robot, for instance, it knows exactly where to place its foot so that it doesn’t tip over like some of its peers. And thanks to that added flexibility, it’s more likely to survive that rudeness.

The technology is a long way from reaching robots you can interact with. For one thing, these machines would need ‘heads’ or some other way of exploring the world on their own. They may be particularly clever when they arrive, though. The team is also exploring the possibility of teaching bipedal robots t coordinate in shared actions, such as carrying a table. You could eventually see moving robots that have no problems hauling your couch down a flight of stairs.

Source: EPFL, PLOS One

Protect your credit card info with the free ‘Skimmer Scanner’ Android app

Why it matters to you

Your credit card data can be compromised at any time, and this free app will warn of potential threats.

The price we pay for convenience is sometimes vulnerability to unscrupulous people trying to steal valuable financial information. It’s not always an anonymous hacker on the internet, however — the biggest danger may be at your local convenience store. The next time you fill your tank and swipe your card, be aware that there could be a “skimmer” inside the pump, recording and storing your credit card data for later retrieval.

It turns out that it’s ridiculously easy to install a card skimmer at a point of sale terminal. Gas pumps are particularly vulnerable because they’re often unmanned and have a lot of traffic. Luckily, there’s a free Android app called Skimmer Scanner that can alert you if there are any of these devices nearby.

A gas pump skimmer can be installed in less than 30 seconds. It records your credit card data when you fill up, then when the perpetrator returns to the scene of the crime — hours or even days later — they can retrieve all the stolen credit card info remotely with a cell phone or laptop.

Nathan Seidle, CEO of the website SparkFun, has a detailed analysis of how these gas pump skimmers work at his blog. He was contacted by local law enforcement, who provided him with several of the skimmer devices they had found, and asked if he could retrieve the data that they had stored.

Most skimmers use a Bluetooth connection, which can be easily detected. Seidle was amazed at the ineptitude of the criminals who designed the skimmers. “Initially this blew my mind,” he wrote. “If I were to design a bluetooth skimmer I would program the module to NOT broadcast its ID.”

He went on to add, “The soldering of the ribbon (the gray cable that connects to the credit card reader) is horrendously bad indicating the perpetrator has very little experience with soldering and probably zero experience with electronics.” Don’t count on criminal incompetence to protect you, however. “The designers of this skimmer were smart, it’s better to make these devices easy to connect to than to add a layer of security. What’s the worst that could happen? The device is detected and removed from the pump. Meanwhile, 10 more have been deployed for a total cost of $100.”

The Skimmer Scanner app checks for nearby Bluetooth transmissions and alerts you when one is detected. “Many of these devices go undiscovered until they’re removed by the scammers,” Nathan Poole (who designed the app) told ZDNet. “I think what we’ll find as more and more people use the app is that there are more skimmers out there than anyone previously thought.”

Currently, the app is only available for Android and there are no plans for an iPhone version. The code is open-source, however, so feel free to tinker away.

Protect your credit card info with the free ‘Skimmer Scanner’ Android app

Why it matters to you

Your credit card data can be compromised at any time, and this free app will warn of potential threats.

The price we pay for convenience is sometimes vulnerability to unscrupulous people trying to steal valuable financial information. It’s not always an anonymous hacker on the internet, however — the biggest danger may be at your local convenience store. The next time you fill your tank and swipe your card, be aware that there could be a “skimmer” inside the pump, recording and storing your credit card data for later retrieval.

It turns out that it’s ridiculously easy to install a card skimmer at a point of sale terminal. Gas pumps are particularly vulnerable because they’re often unmanned and have a lot of traffic. Luckily, there’s a free Android app called Skimmer Scanner that can alert you if there are any of these devices nearby.

A gas pump skimmer can be installed in less than 30 seconds. It records your credit card data when you fill up, then when the perpetrator returns to the scene of the crime — hours or even days later — they can retrieve all the stolen credit card info remotely with a cell phone or laptop.

Nathan Seidle, CEO of the website SparkFun, has a detailed analysis of how these gas pump skimmers work at his blog. He was contacted by local law enforcement, who provided him with several of the skimmer devices they had found, and asked if he could retrieve the data that they had stored.

Most skimmers use a Bluetooth connection, which can be easily detected. Seidle was amazed at the ineptitude of the criminals who designed the skimmers. “Initially this blew my mind,” he wrote. “If I were to design a bluetooth skimmer I would program the module to NOT broadcast its ID.”

He went on to add, “The soldering of the ribbon (the gray cable that connects to the credit card reader) is horrendously bad indicating the perpetrator has very little experience with soldering and probably zero experience with electronics.” Don’t count on criminal incompetence to protect you, however. “The designers of this skimmer were smart, it’s better to make these devices easy to connect to than to add a layer of security. What’s the worst that could happen? The device is detected and removed from the pump. Meanwhile, 10 more have been deployed for a total cost of $100.”

The Skimmer Scanner app checks for nearby Bluetooth transmissions and alerts you when one is detected. “Many of these devices go undiscovered until they’re removed by the scammers,” Nathan Poole (who designed the app) told ZDNet. “I think what we’ll find as more and more people use the app is that there are more skimmers out there than anyone previously thought.”

Currently, the app is only available for Android and there are no plans for an iPhone version. The code is open-source, however, so feel free to tinker away.

‘The Witness’ for iOS brings you soothing graphics to accompany tough puzzles

App Attack is a weekly series where we search the App Store and Google Play Store for the best apps of the week. Check out App Attack every Sunday for the latest.

Puzzles can be exciting for some, and frightening for others. When you’re young, those big, colorful pieces were always exciting to put together — mainly because there weren’t very many of them. As you become older, the pieces become smaller and far more numerous and confusing. This week, we have an app that still brings you bright visuals accompanied by intense puzzles.

The Witness is a single-player game with over 500 puzzles, and it has a few distinguishing qualities from other such apps. For starters, the plot begins with you waking up alone on a deserted island. You’re unable to remember how you got there, and so you spend the game discovering clues and regaining your memory. Most importantly, you’re also attempting to find your way back home.

The game originally launched on PC and PS4 back in 2016, following by XBox One and Mac later on. While it’s already been available for Android, the app now has a home on iOS as well. You’ll have to make sure you’re running on iOS 10 or iOS 11 in order to be able to play it on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. As far as price goes, it will cost you $10, which seems expensive, but is a bargain compared to the $40 price tag it has for gaming consoles and desktops.

When I say it’s a single-player game, I really mean it. You get little to no direction other than the ability to walk completely throughout the locations to try and spot a clue. If you’re looking for a game with guidance and barely any no effort, you might want to consider one that’s far more easy-going. I’m not the biggest fan of puzzles but when I downloaded The Witness, I figured they would be a bit challenging but more simple for the most part — I was really wrong.

In the beginning, you start off walking through a dark tunnel and up a staircase to what looks like a garden. You’re on your own to find where the puzzles are and then solve them, though. The puzzles look extremely similar to the ones you’ve probably seen in coloring books, where you have to find the direct path to the exit. With this game, the biggest hint you’ll get is where the actual exit which is signaled by a blinking circle. But it’s up to you to figure out how to get there. To try and solve them, simply run your finger across the path you think is correct.

While the puzzles themselves are a struggle to solve, the interface is super easy to navigate and follow along wit. In order to move around, all you have to do is tap the screen twice to start running and once to walk or stop. If you want to run further distances without having to continuously double tap, you can tap to where you want to end up. A beam of light will appear to mark where the end point is, so you know exactly where you’l stop. You can also zoom out and back in with two fingers, the way you normally would on your iPhone.

When it comes to graphics, I loved how bright and crisp they were. As a first-person game, The Witness takes every last detail into account to give you an immersive experience. From vivid colors to changes in scenery depending on which direction you walk in. I went from a rugged trail out in the open to an area filled with bright orange Fall leaves coating the grass.

The sound effects are also what makes the game even more enjoyable, with a notification in the beginning letting you know it will sound better with headphones. Walking through the outdoors, you’ll hear everything from the leaves crunching underneath your shoes to the body of water calmly flowing in the background. It can definitely also act as one of those ambient noise machines because before you know it, you’ll walking around to enjoy the view instead of attempting to solve puzzles.

It makes sense that a game with such difficult puzzles would need nature to help balance out your sanity. When I started the puzzles in the beginning, I was on a roll, zooming through each one. But soon enough, you’ll start to realize they’re not easy at all. Even though the game does tell you the end point, the paths become more complex and what seems like unsolvable. Another aspect of this game I really appreciated was the fact that you don’t have to solve the puzzle right in front of you in order to move on to the next one. If you find one of them is too difficult, you can abandon it and come back to it later.

The game may seem intimidating after a while — I wasn’t able to play for more than an hour at a time — but it will keep you coming back. Sometimes, when you don’t overthink the puzzle too much, you’ll realize the answer is actually right in front of you. Other times, it’s best to simply move on and come back to it later. It’s not like there aren’t tons of places to see and discover within the game — don’t forget to give your brain a break. With over 500 puzzles to solve, it’s one of those games you’ll most likely always have available to play.

How to stream on YouTube Gaming, a quick and easy guide

Sharing some of your gameplay exploits with friends, family and perhaps one day, adoring fans is a great way to show off your in-game skills and entertainment chops in one smooth move. But in order to kick off your professional streaming career, you need to know how to stream on YouTube Gaming. Fortunately, we’ve got a handy guide for teaching you just how to do that.

There are plenty of streaming video platforms out there, with Twitch being one of the most famous for gaming. But as the most prominent video viewing platform in the world, YouTube still draws in huge numbers of viewers, and YouTube Gaming and its feature set is always growing.

To get you started, here is our guide on how to stream on YouTube Gaming, broken down into several easy steps.

Setting up your stream

Step 1: Sign in to your Youtube account using the “Sign In” button in the top right-hand corner of YouTube’s homepage.

Step 2: To live stream video on YouTube you need to have a verified account. Go to youtube.com/verify and give up your mobile number, to which YouTube will send a code. Input that and your account is ready to begin setting up your stream.

Step 3: Go to your account’s Creator Studio  page and under the “Live Streaming” drop-down menu on the left-hand side, select “Stream Now.” You’ll be presented with a lot of different options for your stream. You can input a name and description in “Basic Info,” and choose a category and game title. You can also decide whether you want the video to be “Public”, “Unlisted,” or “Private.”

It’s worthwhile getting at least these basic settings right before proceeding.

Other options you might want to go over include what sort of stream you want — one designed for viewer interaction, or better visual playback — whether you want to monetize the video or not, and you can change the thumbnail if you want something more specific to the game you’re playing.

For additional stream set up information, you can view the “Live Streaming Checklist” on the right-hand side of your Stream Now page.

If you want to learn how to change your YouTube name to help draw in more viewers, we have a guide for that too.

Setting up your encoder

Once the stream itself is set up, you need to set up the encoder software you’re going to use to actually record and send the in-game footage to YouTube Gaming. To do that, you need to pick from the list of supported encoders. Our preference, because of its strong feature set for free users and expanded feature set for subscribers, is XSplit Gamecaster.

Step 1: Download XSplit Gamecaster from its official site and install it as you would any other software.

Step 2: Verify your YouTube Live account through XSplit. If an automated popup doesn’t give you the option, head to the “Accounts” tab in the XSplit Window and “Authorize” your account for live streaming to YouTube Live.

Much like verifying your YouTube account, it will involve sending a code to your mobile device. Input that into the pop-up window and then click “Allow” on the following screen to give XSplit access to your YouTube account.

Step 3: In the “Settings” menu, tweak any aspects of your stream that you consider important. Link your social media accounts, customize your “BRB Graphics” if you step away from the stream, and decide whether you want viewers to see things like your mouse pointer.

Two important options to configure are your microphone and camera. If you want your viewers to see and hear you correctly, make sure your headset microphone is selected, and that your camera works properly. You can test it looking at the video in the top left-hand corner.

Bringing it all together

With your YouTube live stream set up and your encoder software organized properly, it’s time to actually start streaming.

Step 1: Boot up the game you want to play.

Step 2: Press “Ctrl” and “Tab” keys together to bring up the XSplit Gamecaster overlay.

Step 3: Click “Stream”.

Step 4: One final window gives you a few choices before your stream officially begins. It lets you preview elements such as your title and description, as well as whether the stream will be public or not. You can adjust other settings from the overlay during play, and view your own livestream through the Creator Studio, or via its live link, to confirm it looks as intended.

When you’re finally ready to begin, hit “Start Broadcast.”

Step 5: Stream away!

Step 6: When you’re finished streaming, you can shut down the game itself, at which point you’ll be prompted whether you want to end the stream, or use the XSplit Gamescaster overlay to shut down the stream manually.

Although any live streams you do will be automatically saved as recorded streams by YouTube, you can download them, or others, using these simple methods.

CRISPR gene-editing technology could lower risk of miscarriages

Why it matters to you

This information could help us to determine why some women have more miscarriages than others.

British scientists offered some new insight into the early stages of human development recently. For the first time, scientists in the U.K. have employed gene-editing techniques on human embryos. They’ve identified a key gene that controls how embryos are formed during the first few days of development. The gene-editing technology is called CRISPR Cas9.

CRISPR allows for the permanent modification of genes within organisms. It can also cut out genetic defects that are believed to contribute to miscarriages. There’s a human genetic marker known as OTC4 has an important role to play in the early stages of embryonic development. By using CRISPR, these scientists have discovered that human embryos that don’t have this gene will not grow properly. This information could help us to determine why some women have more miscarriages than others.

“Our research is the first time that genome editing has been used to understand the role of a gene in early embryonic development,” says Kathy Niakan, who led the work at the Francis Crick Institute in London. “This knowledge can be used to improve IVF treatment and improve our understanding of how some pregnancies fail.”

41 human embryos were donated by couples after in-vitro fertilization (IVF). The research found in this study could also potentially increase the amount of successful IVF procedures. Sometimes, IVF is the only option a couple has to having a baby using their own genes. Even with all of the technological advancements, however, there are still a low number of successes. According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 36 percent of all IVF cycles are going to result in a successful pregnancy.

It is possible that lower than normal OCT4 activity is the reason why embryos fail to implant successfully, which leads to miscarriages. In order to treat this, scientists could just change the way embryos are cultured in the IVF process.

“Many embryos arrest in culture, or fail to continue developing after implantation,” said Kay Elder, study co-author. “This research will significantly help treatment for infertile couples, by helping us to identify the factors that are essential for ensuring that human embryos can develop into healthy babies.”

The first attempt at genetically modifying human embryos in the U.S. was done earlier this year in July. Scientists in the U.K. were first given the green light to edit DNA in human embryos in early 2016.